Armored Core: The Black Feather War
by Rivyn Daniel
Summary: Enter a world where Ravens are no longer then mercenaries they once were. The Raven Clan's are embroiled in a global war and the citizens of Earth are trapped in the middle and the Earth Forces are powerless to stop them. Join one pilot as he tries to unc


Armored Core

The Black Feather War

Chapter 1

Zero Hawk

Preface

It was over a hundred years ago that the Clan Wars broke out.

No one knew what started it, only that overnight, the Raven's became fractured, forming clans under the leadership of the most skilled and dangerous pilots. They became organizations of such power that the Corporations cowered in fear of these warriors. Ravens went from revered and respected, to feared and hated. The destruction they caused in their battles was enormous, forcing the United Military to step in, but even their power was inadequate to overcome the sheer force of will and strength the Ravens controlled.

Not since the Great Destruction had the world seen the lost of so many lives. Civilian and Military alike were cut down without mercy or sympathy as the Clans fought for territory and wealth, expanding their individuals influences and establishing power bases while the Corporations looked on helplessly. Since the start of the war, many clans have simply ceased to be, completely obliterated from the face of the earth, while others have been forced to merge with larger clans to survive their enemies.

Once highly sought after for their skills, Corporations are now scared to employ the services of Ravens for fear of occurring the wrath of a rival clan unless theirs no other choice.

Pilots of all calibre fight for survival every day, backed by the loyalty and support of their clan. Some fight for wealth, others for glory, while a rare few fight for more noble reasons, and others fight simply for revenge.

For a over a hundred years the Ravens have warred with one another.

And for a hundred years more, they could continue………

Present Day

The apartment was dark and aside from the bathroom which only had a toilet and small shower, there was only one room and it was incredibly cramped. It was a claustrophobics worst nightmare. The young man sitting on the bed staring out the window in his black singlet and underwear, didn't mind though, he didn't really care, he was use to be strapped into enclosed spaces, and the cockpit of a mech was a bit smaller then his room.

He took a drag of his cigarette, pulled it away from his mouth and a few seconds later he exhaled the smoke, all the while seeming to watch something no one else could see. Sirens wailed in the distances of the large city. What had it been this time, he wondered, mugging, kidnapping, murder, rape? Maybe all of the above. You could never be sure these days. Stepping outside your home these days was a risk in itself, one everybody had to take if they were to live any kind of normal life.

After taking one more long drag of the cigarette he took it from his mouth and pushed its tip against the window seal, putting it out and then flicking it outside. He got up and pulled a pair of black jeans on over his boxes and grabbed his wallet from his bedside table and left. After making sure the door was locked he proceeded down the stairs of the ratty old apartment building, ignoring the little kids playing in the hall way with toy mecha.

Zero Hawk he called himself – what his real name was, he didn't know, he had been alone for as long as he could remember. Didn't matter though he thought, it was only proper one should choose the name you'd be stuck with for the rest of your life. He was six foot tall, had closely cropped black hair and amber eyes. He had a hard look to him that chilled those that he had faced down in numerous confrontations, on various battle fields. Being a Raven did that to people though he realized once. When you became a pilot, you were signing away a piece of yourself and only those that could put it all behind them like a pair of old shoes had any business being on the battlefield.

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't considered retiring from being a pilot and a mercenary. He had seen countless battles of many kinds and it did weigh heavily on him, it would weigh heavily on anyone, no matter how much they would deny it. Fact of the matter was though, he didn't know how to be anything else, and piloting came naturally to him, any other kind of job he'd be like a fish out of water and he doubted he could just sit around and do nothing, living off his accumulated credits for the rest of his life. Nope, he was born to be a mercenary pilot and was fated to die as one too, he had accepted that with no qualms really.

As he stopped at a pay phone he quickly lit up a smoke and then pressed a credit chip into the slot next to the phone. He pulled the phone up to his ear and punched in the number. His apartment building didn't have any phone lines and there wasn't enough room anyway for him to fit a computer in the place. Less bills to pay anyway he told himself. As he waited for the person on the other end of the line to pick up, he briefly contemplated how much a military pilot earned, but he liked his freedom and being a Raven he more less had all the freedom he needed and could carry out a mission almost any way he wished really, and he was neither a team player or capable of taking orders.

The phone clicked as the person at the other end picked up, catching Zero's attention.

"Who is this?" came a tired voice.

"Its me Jill" he replied calmly. "Got any work for me?"

Jill had been his operator since he had became a Raven six years ago, when he was fourteen, back when he was still a rookie and glad just to get even a low paying job. Back in the day when he had been a cocky bastard and grateful for every chance he got to show off in front of other rookies. He wondered if he had really been that juvenile.

"Sorry kid, nothing's come up that you'd be interested in, just a couple of suicide sorties is all, you always turn your nose up those ones" the woman told him.

She was a good Operator, had always gotten him good jobs, made sure when he was a rookie that he never got any jobs that he would be killed trying to accomplish. He knew he owed her a lot, though he had never met her, only heard her voice over phones and voice messages on the net from the days when he had rented and shared a room with another Raven at the HQ of the Clan he was a member of. In some strange way, he felt she was like a mother to him. He decided he was going to have to make it a point to meet her one day and thank her face to face.

"I haven't had a job in almost two months Jill" he said calmly. "This war, its just stuffing everything up even more lately. If I don't get out on a job soon I'm going to go nuts."

He heard the woman sigh on the other end of the phone. "Sorry Hawk, unless you want me to send you want me to transfer you information on some of these suicide ones?"

He rested the phone against his shoulder for a few seconds, mauling the idea over in his head. Really, he could handle a lot of suicide jobs – as they were so popularly called – its just that most didn't pay enough to risk your neck over. On the other hand though, he was a pilot at heart and needed to some action and the chance to maintain his skills. If he kept putting jobs off he was going to be rusty by the time another job came around.

"Sure Jill, give me a second and I'll put my data card in, send me the information for all them" he told her as fished the card out of his pocket and placed into the slot just below the credit chip slot.

"Ok Hawk, your old enough to be able to take care of yourself these days I suppose. You've come a very long way since you made it into the Clan. Just remember, the job starts to get too hairy, get out, I've lost too many fledglings to these god forsaken missions" she told him seriously. He saw the light next to the transfer slot light up as the information was being sent through. "Anyway, how have you been kid? Eating properly?"

Zero couldn't help but smile, and wonder if she thought of him as some of kind of son too.

"I'm fine, and don't worry, I'm eating just fine" he assured her.

"You need to get out of this business Zero" she told him calmly, but he could hear the concern concealed behind it. "You need to find yourself a girl."

He was quiet for a while, a sad frown on his face. "There's no girl out there that could put up with me Jill, you know that. Its not something that's in the cards for me anyway" the transfer light started flashing, signalling that the transfer was complete. "It was good talking to yah Jill, I've gotta go though so take care of yourself."

"Ok kid" she sighed, probably knowing it was no use trying to convince him.

Silently he hung up the phone, and retrieved his data card, and just stood there for what felt like more then a few minutes before he silently walked off down the cold streets

*

Later that day he sat down at a table in the mess hall of Clan HQ he was a member of. He ate his lunch idly while he looked over the information Jill had transferred to him on his data pad. Just about all the jobs were typical suicide class jobs with pay that wouldn't even pay for a simple motor joint repair on his mech. There was one that jumped out at him though. The first thing he noticed was that it was a very high paying job, he could buy new state of the art weapon with the kind of money they were offering, or maybe have his mecha overhauled. Next thing that caught his attention was that the money was paid in advance, and then there was the fact that all the information about the mission indicated that it was barely suicide class. That, however, was what made him weary, and probably why Jill hadn't thought of mentioning. He looked to see who was requesting the help, and saw that it had simply been filled in as anonymous.

That sent the last warning bell off.

He tapped his finger absently on the table as he eyed the data suspiciously. Something about it didn't feel right, and veteran pilots like himself were almost never wrong when it came to their feelings. Thing was, that if you survived your first year as a Raven, and didn't get a limb blown off or lose your first mech, you had potential. If you survived the next four years you were talented and over all, a brilliant pilot, or just damn lucky. Finally if you survived a total of six years from your first mission, you were a veteran, and probably the only surviving member of the training group you had been in prior to being accepted as a full fledge Raven.

"Accepting Suicide jobs now eh?" he looked up as a man in his thirties sat down beside him.

Ken Bauer, an ace pilot and veteran twenty years longer then Zero. He was known by everyone in the clan and he knew everyone in turn. He helped train new recruits and took on every sort of job that was thrown his way. Zero sometimes suspected that Ken was the best there was when it came to piloting. He had survived so many scraps that would have killed anyone else that it earned him almost legendary status. However, if he was aware of his uncanny ability to survive, he didn't show it. He was a generous man, modest and easy going. Him and Zero had been friends for a long time.

"Gotta start taking what I can get" Zero said calmly.

"I hear yah" Ken nodded, they were two of the few that chose taking jobs over going out on battle campaigns against other Clans. "Can you believe I had to take a job the other day that only paid three thousand creds? Three thousand for taking down a sizeable guard force guarding a car with a data recorder in it. You know what was on the data card? Some guy claiming he was the reincarnation of someone called Elvis, whoever that is. Apparently my employers thought the information had some value to it."

Zero eyed him suspiciously, he could never tell when Ken was joking about a job or not. He found it highly unlikely that Ken would accept such a low paying job. He chose to let it go, knowing it would drive him crazy for the rest of the day if he didn't, and it would be no use asking Ken if he was joking or not because he would just give a cryptic answer that would be even more frustrating.

"Hey, did yah hear another Clan fell the other day, they got held up in their launch bunker and then activated their self destruct program, wiped out anything living within about fifty miles of them, including a good portion of the enemy force they were fighting. Probably be another four or so months and that Clan will fall too" Ken said, spooning some mashed potato into his mouth.

Zero wasn't surprised really to hear about another Clan falling, but it had been happening more frequently lately, and there wasn't that many clans left, the ones that were left were the biggest and had the most talented pilots around. He knew if it came down to a final battle between clans, the resulting chaos would be incalculable. It made him shiver just thinking about, all the carnage that would be caused in the ensuing battle. What's more if they were forced to activate their own self destruct program, they'd wipe out the entire city, it was well within the blast radius.

"So its either die on a job, or die in a pointless battle?" he said quietly.

"Pretty much the large and small of it" Ken nodded gloomily.

Zero looked at the amount he'd be paid for the mission. With that much money, he could buy himself a deep space transport vessel and go to another planet like Mars where the Clan Wars weren't as large scale as they were here on Earth. It was certainly a more desirable outcome then hanging around waiting for an enemy clan to come knocking at the front door and try to blow them all to pieces. He decided to think more about that idea later.

"You sure your ready for what's coming?" Ken asked him seriously.

"What are you talking about? What's coming?" he replied as he took another bite of sandwich.

Ken looked at him with some level of surprise. "Surely you can feel it in your bones? Something bad is coming Zero, haven't you notice how skittish everyone is? These Clan wars have become something else now. Something big is coming, something really big."

"So what?" Zero asked, getting a shocked look from Ken. "The idiots that have gone out and kept on fighting for the last hundred years need a wake up call and by the sounds of it this might actually be a good kick in the ass for them. Me however, one sign that things are getting too bad around here and I'm gone, that's always been my plan and it always will be. I love this Clan, it gave me something special, but I'm not going to die in a pointless war that no one remembers the reason for. I hope your not stupid enough to stay and throw your life away for it, you've got a kid and a wife, you take you savings and fly them off this rock."

Ken gave him a strange look. "Sometimes I think you're older then you appear, I should be saying something along the same lines to you."

"I already know what I should do, but now isn't the time" he explained and looked back to the data on the job.

"I could come with you on this job if you want, if you slip me five percent of the pay" Ken said, as he saw the amount of the reward pay.

Under normal situations, Zero would have declined the offer, but because he couldn't be sure of what kind of force he'd be going up against and having Ken along as a co-op would levitate some of the pressure on him if he came up against a heavily armed force. He shrugged and nodded. After getting Ken's account details he transferred five percent of the pay into the account.

"The details say that we can begin the mission whenever we please, within a week, I suggest we suit up and move out as soon as possible, when are you good to go?" he asked.

Ken looked at his watch. "Give me half an hour to ring the wife and tell her I wont be home for dinner and get suited up and I'll be ready to move out."

Zero watched as Ken got up disappeared out the mess hall, before getting up and left the mess hall via another exit, this one went to elevator that took pilots to the AC hanger. He had to decide which weapons he was going to put on his AC before he moved out. He rode the elevator all the way down to the bottom and then braced himself as the platform started move sideways at an incredible speed. The access ways that the first Clan members had built travelled deep under the city and went out into the deserted where the Hanger was. Each AC had its own garage set up, complete with fully automated computers to switch out AC parts and help with repairs if necessary. Zero's own garage was quiet extensive in its own right, he had brought a good selection of weapons so he would never be on the short list if there was a requirement for a mission.

Not long later the platform came to a stop and him and the other few people that were also going to the hanger, stepped off and went to their AC garages. Zero's was on the second level. He had called ahead and already his AC was getting diagnostics ran on it to make sure it was in prime order, which it should have been, save of course for some thick layers of dust.

Warhawk he had named the AC – mostly due to the head piece which reminded him of a bird of prey head – golden bronze all over with some black trims here and there, it was a middle weight type mech with good weaponry. It carried a laser machine gun in its right, was equipped with the best laser blade he could find on its left. On it's right shoulder was a linear gun and on its left was a chain gun. It looked ordinary, but it was a machine of glory, it had never let him down and he always had it fine tuned. He had customized the control systems to his liking and now, only he could pilot it safely, for anyone else to try would be suicide. Then there was the computer, state of the art, programmed with a limited AI system so if he needed to he could leave the mecha to operate on auto pilot if he was ever injured or simply too tired to pilot it. Rarely however did he need to.

It was his pride and joy.

*

A couple of hours later, Zero sat in his cockpit with his eyes closed and his arms crossed, listening to the engines of the transport vessel carrying them to the mission zone. He had ended up switching his machine gun and linear gun out for a high powered sniper rifle and a small missile launcher. He hoped that it would be enough. He thought about the mission summary, which had basically said that an unusual amount of activity was present in an area that was suppose to be deserted, and the sender wanted reconnaissance done of the area. Opposing force was unknown but it said it was unlikely that he would run into any enemies at all, but he was to eliminate any enemy forces he encountered.

He had a bad feeling about it though. Ken said it was just pre mission nerves, but Zero dismissed that idea, he never got pre mission nerves and was slightly insulted.

His comlink beeped and without opening his eyes he reached up to the button on the side of his helmet and opened the channel.

"What is it Ken?" he asked before yawning slightly.

"Just wanted to say, that in case I don't make it back and that's always a possibility in our line of work, I've been putting money away for my wife and kid in an account I set up for them, there's a nice small fortune in there for them. Let my wife know that all the details are in the safe at the bank" Ken said seriously.

Zero frowned. "Don't talk like that Ken, if either of us are gonna die today it'll be me making sure you get home to them so you can tell your wife about that secret account of yours. No more talking like that while we're on this mission you got it?"

"Ok kid, just remember, if anything happens tell her, she'll know which bank" Ken said with just a slight hint of amusement directed at Zero's tone. "ETA in three minutes kid, you ready to party?"

"You brink the beer, I'll bring the chips" Zero replied as he sat up and activated a bunch of display screens, and brought his weapons all online.

Three minutes later the back of the transport vessel opened up and both mech's moved out, plummeting to the ground below, both landing and sending up clouds of sand around them, Zero cringed at the thought of having to unclog the joints when this was all over. He hated fighting in sandy areas, the sand always got in everything, the last time he had done a mission in the desert it had taken him days to get all the sand out of it, even then he had to have Warhawk overhauled just to make sure it was till in excellent working condition.

Zero looked over to Ken's AC, Deathcard, it was a lightweight mech with small rocket launcher on one shoulder, a small missile launcher on the other and carried a machine gun in one hand and an energy blade on the other, like most AC's. Deathcard was a contender, and had seen many battles and many redesigns. It was white with dark greys and black trimmings and sported the symbol of a poker card with a skull in the middle on its shoulders. Deathcard wasn't always a light weight, Ken always changed it for every single mission depending on his mood or the mission type. Obviously he thought he needed speed over strength and power this time.

They moved towards the mission area as quietly as they possibly could and get a constant vigil for any enemy mecha's or detection radars . Night was approaching quickly and Zero would be thankful for the extra cover it would give them, but it was a double edge sword the blessing, as it gave any enemies that were hiding out there the same cover. They would soon have to rely on their radars for spotting any enemies that were out there. Still they pushed on undeterred, until at last they reached the area indicated on the map. They took cover behind a grouping of large boulders and peered out carefully at the area where all the activity was suppose to be taking place.

"Odd" Zero said cryptically.

"What?" Ken asked as his face appeared in mid air on a holo screen.

"All I can see is a couple of large command tents. There's a couple of people walking around, about half a dozen MT's and two tanks" the young pilot said with a frown. "This can't be the high level of activity the summary was talking about, if it is great, we get a good pay for nothing, but I don't know, it just doesn't seem right to me."

"They could have heard about our mission and moved all the big stuff to a new location" Ken pointed out.

"No, they wouldn't have left this lot here, especially if they don't want whatever they've got going on becoming public knowledge" Zero said, zooming in on one of the command tents in hopes that he might be able to see something of use, but it was no good. "There's something going on here Ken, and I'm really starting to get a bad feeling about this, something's not right."

"Hey look" Ken said suddenly.

Zero shifted his gaze over to where Ken was pointing his AC arm at. The ground in front of the command tents looked like it was shaking violently, and then the ground started to open up, almost like a fissure, until Zero spotted the mistakable sight of bulkhead doors.

"An underground facility" he said quietly. "That must be where everything is."

"Should we go in?" Ken asked.

"Its part of the mission I'm afraid. We'll take out these topside guys first and then we'll make the descent into hell" Zero told him.

"Look, something's coming out" Ken said suddenly.

Zero looked back over to the hole and couldn't believe his eyes at what he was seeing. It was a helicopter. One designed solely for heavy combat. Heavily armored and heavily armed with enough weapons to decimate even an AC with the right pilot at its controls. On the front of the cockpit was a huge multi barrel rocket launcher, and on either side of the cockpit were missile launchers, and two chain guns on the underside of the cockpit as well, and Zero could see several other machine guns placed all over it. He knew instantly what it was, but he didn't think there were anymore left.

"An Oniyama" he said quietly, his mouth dry. "They were widely used before the Great Destruction, or so the archives say. They're armed to the teeth and their armor is incredibly thick but they're also impossibly fast. No more were suppose to exist though, only wreckages that were unfixable."

"So where'd these guys get one?" Ken asked.

"I have a theory, but we're gonna need to get down that shaft to find out, first though, we're gonna have to take this thing out. Oniyama's are too dangerous to be let flying around" he replied as he aimed his sniper rifle at it.

He watched as two cross hairs converged on the spot he had the rifle pointed at and waited anxiously, hoping that this would take it down. Finally the cross hairs met each other and went red, indicating a lock on. He pulled the trigger and the shot that rang out over the quiet desert seemed to be as loud a bomb explosion. Just as the bullet was about to hit the rotor blades though, the Oniyama shifted up slightly and the bullet grazed the side of the combat chopper.

"Oh crap! Ken, get ready!" he shouted as alarms started to go off.

They both came running out from their hiding spot and charged towards the target area as the six MT's and the two battle tanks turned and headed towards them. As they slid down the slope leading to the encampment, Zero activated his chain gun and opened fire, ripping apart one tank and then the second in a matter of seconds. He saw Ken bring up his machine gun and brought down one of the MT's with half a dozen shots.

Really, Zero wasn't concerned about the MT's, he was more worried about the Oniyama that was still flying over head, if it opened fire on them, it only needed one good shot on each of them and they'd be scrap before they could blink.

"You take care of the MT's" he told Ken. "I'll try and take care of the Oniyama."

"Don't get your self shot up too much kid!" Ken yelled back to him.

As they hit the bottom of the slope Zero strafed to the side, firing his rifle at the Oniyama as to draw its attention to him. He was more successful then he had hoped. Almost instantly the attack chopper started to fire its chain guns and machine guns at him. Explosions of sands erupted at his heels as he ran, then without warned he jumped to the side, rolled across the sand and came back in a crouch with his chain gun poised. He opened fire and watched as a line of bullet dents appeared across the chopper's side. He switched to his missile launchers and got a lock on quickly and fired without hesitation. The missiles spiraled around one another as they chased after the Oniyama and slammed indiscriminately into its sides and back end, explosions erupting all over followed by bellows of fiery smoke

"Gotcha" Zero said triumphantly.

His warning systems started to go berserk suddenly and out of the cloud of smoke two rockets came hurtling towards him. He barely had time to boost backwards before the rockets slammed into the ground, the blast throwing him backwards across the desert floor. The Oniyama emerged quickly from the cloud of smoke and while it looked a little worse for wear now, it still looked more then capable of going another few rounds with him.

"Ok, you bastard, come and get me!" he snarled as he got his AC to its feet.

Almost as if the pilot had heard him, the Oniyama suddenly came racing towards him, guns blazing as it did. Zero turned his mech around and hit the overboost and was thrown back into his seat as the AC shot forward. He held on tightly and struggled briefly with the controls as he redirected himself upwards into the sky, watching his energy charge dropping drastically. He turned his AC around and switched his overboost off and saw the Oniyama come charging up at him.

"Take this!!" Zero screamed.

At the last minute he fired off his laser blade and watched as it sliced through the cockpit like a hot knife through butter. He landed in a crouch and behind him the Oniyama nose dived into the ground and exploded in a great ball of fire. He had little time to enjoy his victory as large missile launchers and gun turrets started to emerge from the ground.

"This just keeps getting better and better" he said through clenched teeth. "Ken! Are those bulkhead doors still opened?"

"Yeah, why?" the older Raven replied.

"Get in there now, I'm on my way" he told him.

He ran as fast he could, using his boosters to move him out of the way of a missile when it got to close. The cloud of dust he was kicking up behind him though helped a great deal in interfering with the missile lock on from the missile launchers. He made it back to the bulkhead doors and saw all the carnage Ken had wrought upon the MT's and whatever else got in his way. He saw the bulkhead doors start to close and quickly ran to them, jumping over an MT wreckage and into the shaft, the doors closing up over him a couple of seconds later. He fired his boosters and slowed his descent and landed smoothly at the bottom thousands of meters from the surface.

"Zero, get down!" Ken's voice suddenly snapped over the comlink.

Zero jumped to the side as a hail of bullets whizzed past him and riddled an MT that had been running up behind him. He turned and saw Ken with his machine gun poised and smoke rising from the barrel.

"Thanks" Zero said gratefully.

"No problem kid" Ken replied.

Zero looked around and saw that the place they were in was nothing more then a launching bay. Then he saw another set of bulkhead doors on the far side of the launching bay. Without hesitation he launched his remaining missiles at it and braced himself as the missiles exploded with shocking force and filled half of the launch bay up with smoke.

"You could warn me before you do that" Ken grumbled.

"No time to complain, lets move!" Zero replied as he charged forth.

He charged through the hole in the bulkhead doors with Ken following close behind him, almost as soon as they came racing out of the hole weapons started going off as MT's and gun turrets awaited them. They were in a tunnel now, and it was wide enough that the opposing forces were able to move around comfortably, but it was small enough that it was difficult for him and Ken to use their boosters properly.

Zero glided to the left and fired a shot off that powered through the cockpit of an MT and into the shoulder joint of one that was standing behind it. Both MT's exploded as they crashed to the ground and Zero ran at another as he dodged the gun turret mounted on the ceiling. He jumped at the MT in front of him and brought his laser blade down on it, making a deep gash down the front of it and then ran to the side as it exploded. The battle didn't take long, the two Raven's making short work of the considerably weaker mech's and the gun turrets were even easier to destroy.

Without saying a word to each other the Raven used their boosters and powered down to the other end of the tunnel, destroying any MT's that got in their way. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever and Zero was starting to think there was no end to it, when finally they came to the end of it, where a pair of bulkhead doors were left wide open causing Zero to stop suddenly and signalled to Ken to do the same. Curiously he looked around the ceiling and walls of the tunnel, until he found what he was looking for.

"This is a trap" he said and pointed to the security camera in the wall. "They've got another force waiting out there, just for us."

"Probably just the same type of stuff we've seen so far" Ken shrugged.

"They had an Oniyama, Ken, there's no telling what else they might have down here, I'm just saying that we're going to have to play this carefully because as soon as we step out there, we're playing their game" Zero explained. "How are you doing for ammo?"

"Plenty of missiles and rockets left, and just under half for my machine gun. You?" Ken replied.

"Five shots left in my sniper rifle, almost all my rounds for the chain gun and no missiles" Zero said as he did a quick scan of his weapon read outs, he would improvise if he had to. "Here's the plan. Launch two rockets at the very edge of the exit and while they're trying to figure what we've done, we'll rush through the smoke and take them by surprise."

"Sounds good to me" Ken nodded.

Zero readied himself to start running as Ken fired off the two rockets. As soon as the two rockets hit the ground and exploded, the two AC's were running as fast as they could, and jumped through the wall of smoke with their weapons raised and ready to fire, but as soon as they were through the smoke they were met with the most unexpected sight and stood frozen in shock.

Before them was a city, an underground city.

"An underground colony left over from the Great Destruction" Zero said quietly, unable to believe his eyes, he had only ever read about them and seen some pictures in books. Never did he think he would ever see one of the underground cities that human kind had survived in. Since coming back to the surface, human kind had abandoned their underground cities and their locations were known only to those in the highest seats of power.

"Unbelievable" he heard Ken say in awe.

Finally their attention was brought back to the matter at hand as they took notice of the huge force of MT's that were lined up in the streets, along with battle tanks and there was even a few small attack choppers hovering in the air.

"We'll give you this last chance to surrender" Ken suddenly said over an open com frequency.

Zero was almost sure he heard waves of laughter erupt through the ranks of the battle force at the absurdity of Ken's announcement. Trust Ken to make jokes at a time like this.

All at once the enemy force opened fire and him and Ken strafed to either side and returned fire, Zero fired sparingly while Ken unloaded missiles and rockets into the ranks, forcing their enemies to scatter. Zero boosted up onto a small building and took care of the attack choppers with his chain gun, thankful that they were only lightly armored. He stood his ground firmly and took careful aim at the MT's with his sniper rifle and took out five of them, one after another until his sniper rifle was empty. It seemed insignificant though when one considered the size of the force they were faced with.

Zero was snapped out of his thoughts as a group of missiles came flying down at him. He fired his boosters and flew into the air, twisting gracefully around the missiles that went wild as they passed him and flew into the ranks below. He quickly found the source of the missiles, an attack chopper that had been hiding. Without hesitation Zero flew straight at it and slammed his AC fist into it and watched as it blew apart.

"Warning, unknown AC approaching" warned his computer.

"What, where!?" Zero demanded as he landed amongst a group of MT's and started hacking away at them with his laser blade. He looked around for it, but it was impossible to see properly with all the MT's blocking his view. "Ken, watch out, we've got another AC down here, and my guess its not here to help us."

"Already a few steps ahead of you Zero" Ken grunted. "Bastard almost blew me apart with a grenade. Engaging him in close combat now."

Zero pushed an MT back into another and blew them both apart as he unloaded a volley of bullets into them and then boosted into the air to see what this what this AC looked like. He saw it almost instantly and his eyes went wide with shock and horror. It was a middleweight, black all over with red trims, a grenade launcher on its left shoulder and a laser cannon on its right. In its right hand it carried Karasawa laser rifle and a Moonlight laser blade attached to its left, and countless other additions that made it a dangerous machine. Zero was trembling as he saw it and immediately memories he had tried to rid himself of started to flash into his mind.

"Ken!! Get out of there!!" he screamed over the comlink. He started rushing madly through the MT's, knocking them out of the way or cutting them down. "For Christ sakes Ken! Run! Get away from him! He's just playing with you!"

Zero watched as Ken parried a strike from the AC and quickly moved in for an attack, his laser blade slicing a gash across the top of the cockpit area, the pilot of the mysterious AC saved himself only by ducking at the last second. However it was at the same time that the enemy AC drove its blade up into Ken's AC.

"NO!!" Zero screamed as he tried to get to his friend. Ken's machine crumpled to the ground as the other AC withdrew its laser blade and stood back a couple of feet. Zero pushed past the last of the MT's in his way and ran to his friend's side, dropping down to one knee, immediately he saw that the blade had gone up through the cockpit. "Ken! Ken can you hear me!?"

He heard a gurgling sound and a static image appeared on the holo screen, showing Ken with blood running from the corners of his mouth in thick rivers.

"Tell……… my wife……… that………I love her………" were Ken's last words before he slumped back into his seat and then the image disappeared.

"KEN!!" Zero screamed. He had tears in his eyes, and his body was trembling and the rage that was growing inside him was like that of which he had felt four years ago. He turned to the black and red AC with a snarl. "You've haunted my dreams for four fucking years you cold hearted son of a bitch! I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Without warning he fired his boosters and slammed into the AC forcing it back and firing his chain gun at him, but the AC was impossibly fast, voiding the bullets and back handed Zero as he got to close. Zero's sensors went haywire for a couple of seconds as he steadied his AC and then attacked again, his laser blade lashing out at his enemy, but the his opponent blocked and parried his strikes as if they were being made by a child.

Zero fired his boosters again and flew through the air as the black and red AC went to fire a volley of grenades at him, he counted with his chain gun.

"Who are you?!" Zero demanded as the enemy AC skilfully avoided his chain gun shots like they were nothing.

"You can call me Loki, of the Black Scythe" the other pilot told him.

Zero landed far behind the ranks of MT's and started running, he knew he was terribly outnumbered and he would only have his laser blade soon to defend himself.

"You can run, but you can't hide in this place" Loki announced over the comlink.

"Kiss my ass" Zero replied and turned off his comlink.

He powered down the streets using his boosters, weapon fire erupting behind him and biting at the heels of his AC. After a few minutes he looked up and saw that he was coming to end of this section, bulkhead doors keeping him from getting into the other section. For a few seconds he thought he was trapped like a rat, but then he saw the ventilation ducks on either side of the bulkhead doors, they were plenty big enough for an AC of Warhawk's size, he realized. Without stopping he jumped into the air and used his boosters to send himself crashing through the giant grates covering the ventilation ducks and kept on going until he crashed through the grate covering the other side.

This section was almost identical to the first, except that there were a lot more taller buildings everything looked a lot more shabbier, and old and there was more then a few buildings that were having construction being done on them. The best part about it all was that it was totally deserted.

"Stop admiring the sights Zero, gotta focus on finding a way out of here" he told himself.

He looked up at the ceiling of the underground city and saw ventilation shafts all over it, he knew that had to be his way out. He flew up to them and once again found himself crashing through a grate covering it and kept on going, despite seeing his energy reserves getting closer to the red zone. Then he reached the end of it, only to find the shaft veering off sharply to the side. Quickly he hauled himself into the next part of the shaft and started running, it would take them awhile to figure out where he had gotten too, but he was going to make sure there was still a good gap between them.

After awhile of running he was sure that the shaft did go on forever, then he saw a grate covering not too far a head of him and took his time getting to it, moving as quietly as he possibly could so as not to draw any attention to any mysterious sounds. When he got to the grate he peered down through it and saw people far below walking about in a mad rush, and when he looked even harder, he was able to see that it was a engineering work shop, he could even make of at least ten AC's lined up against one wall, all were identical and all middle weights, and on the shoulders the mecha's bore the symbol of a black scythe.

"Hurry up with those repairs, the Commander wanted them ready to move out ten minutes ago" shouted one of the men, Zero figured it was the chief engineer.

"We're going as fast as we can sir" came an excuse from someone he couldn't see.

"Well that's not good enough. The Black Scythe organization doesn't tolerate slackers, now get your ass in gear!" shouted the first man again.

As he listened, he was tempted to crash through the grate, kill everyone in site and use the weaponry that was in the workshop but he discarded it almost instantly, knowing it was too risky. Quietly he continued on, thankful that there was a lot of noise going on in the work shop to mask any noise he made himself. As he continued on, he thought about everything that he had seen. It was quiet obvious that the people that were now using the underground city were not the original occupants, the construction he had seen going on was proof of that. It was becoming apparent that, The Black Scythe was a giant terrorist group, or revolutionary group, both types were just as bad however. He knew he had to get out of here and tell someone.

Before long he came to another vertical shaft and flew straight up, until he crashed through a thick grate and emerged on the surface. Immediately he was being attacked by missile launchers and the gun turrets. He paid them little attention and released the energy limiters on his AC and turned on his overboost. He was slammed back into his chair as the mech shot forward, leaving a trail of dust behind him, he just hoped he could put enough distance between him and the Black Scythe.

"So far so good, but I'm not home free yet" he muttered to himself as he went about tuning a com frequency into his radio, until at last he found it. "Transport, this is Warhawk, I need emergency pick up on the double, do you copy?"

"We copy you Warhawk, what is our rendezvous point?" came the familiar voice of the transport pilot.

He sent them the location data as he kept on going, fully aware that his systems were going into the red due to his overboost, he'd be forced to shut the boosters off soon or his AC would blow up. He was so focused on getting away that he almost never saw the transport vessel coming towards him at full speed. He signalled them and they landed not too far away in the distance. Suddenly there was an explosion not too far behind him, and he switched on his rear camera sensors and saw Loki with a full force battle squadron, firing at him rapidly, but there was too greater distance between them.

"Be ready to lift off as soon I get in the cargo hold!!" he yelled into the comlink.

"Roger that Warhawk" replied the pilot.

Zero saw an incoming rocket and shifted to the side slightly before the rocket slammed into the ground. He gritted his teeth and swung his AC around, making sure his boosters were still propelling him towards the transport vessel and fired his chain gun. A couple of MT's went down instantly, and then much to his delight, a volley of bullets ripped through the right leg of Loki's AC and he fell face first into the desert floor.

"How do you like them apples?!" Zero shouted over the open com frequency as he spun his AC back around.

"Run while you can Raven, your living on borrowed time" came a chilling snarl from Loki.

Zero tried to ignore Loki's words as he shut his boosters off a couple of seconds before reaching the transport vessel and let his forward momentum carry him into back of the vessel. Immediately the transport vessel lifted off the ground and quickly flew into the sky, he could hear the gun fire outside, barely missing the vessel, but then it grew fainter, and fainter until they were high enough and far enough away from the area. He was breathing heavily by this point, gripping his controls tightly as he tried to process everything.

"God damn it all!!"

A Few Hours Later

Zero stood next to his AC for the longest time when he made it back to the Clan HQ, his hands on his hips as thoughts ran rampant through his mind. Without warning he kicked the drum that had been left near his garage area and sent it crashing into another couple of drums. Everyone that was in the hanger bay turned and looked in his direction, and could almost see the anger and hatred circling around him. Without a word he turned and walked off, ignoring the stares he was getting. Then he stopped and looked back to the technicians standing around doing diagnostics of his systems.

"Equip Warhawk with a large missile launcher, my twin-link chain gun, my laser machine gun and my adjust my laser blade to its highest setting. Also, put in my middle missiles and missile laser inceptor, as well as that new lock on jamming equipment I brought the other week" he told them firmly.

"Why?" one of them asked.

"Because I'm going straight back out as soon as possible and settling an old score" Zero hissed, then turned around and walked off.

He took the elevator up to the highest level of the HQ as he had been ordered too shortly after returning to base. He knew what was coming. It was always the same when two Raven's went out on a mission together and only one came back. First would be the debriefing, followed by the barely subtle interrogation by a member of his Clan's secret service group that investigated the a clan member's death. After that he would be offered counselling. He just wanted to by pass it all.

He walked calmly into the room he had been told to go to, and found two men already waiting for him. The first was a fat little man whose arms looked to too short to be apart of his body. The second was the opposite almost, tall, thin, penetrating eyes. Zero gave them an unfriendly look, making sure they knew he didn't want to be here.

"We were not expecting you for a few more minutes" the fat one said a little nervously, Zero wondered idly if he had ever piloted anything in his whole life.

"I want to get this over and done with, so lets get started" he said shortly as he went to seat on the other side of the table and sat down, placing his pilot helmet on the table next to him.

"This will take as long as it has to Mr. Hawk. This agent Shank, and I'm agent Darley" the tall one replied as he pulled a holo recorder out of his suit case. "We'll start by you giving us your report on what happened and we'll go from there. Meeting commenced at four am, Earth time, please, begin."

"I was employed to investigate a high level of activity going on in the east section of the Endless Desert. Reports had indicated that an unusual amount of military equipment was being shipped out to the area but neither returning or making it to any other city. Raven Ken offered to join me on the mission for five percent of the earnings. At first I did not believe that it was worth going out there for, but the pay was simply too good to pass up, especially with these stupid Clan wars making business hard for us real Raven's – "

"Please, stick to the subject at hand Mr. Hawk, we're not interested in hearing your opinion on the war. Continue" Darley told him.

Zero stifled a low growl, but continued. "As I was saying. Ken offered to join me for five percent of the pay and I suspect also because he sensed my uneasiness about the mission. We left HQ three hours before sun down and by the time we reached the mission zone it was night. We saw what appeared to be an encampment and weren't sure what to make of it, there was only half a dozen MT's and two battle tanks protecting the encampment, noting on the scale of what was implied in the mission details. We were deciding what we were going to do when in the middle of the encampment, the ground opened up. It was then that I realized there was an underground facility. We were discussing it when an old Oniyama battle chopper emerged from inside the shaft. It was then that we engaged the enemy, Ken engaged the ground troops and I went after the Oniyama – "

"That's impossible, there are no Oniyama's left" Shank said with a frown.

"With all due respect sir, you were not there, I was, and I know what I saw and if you'd allow me to continue, I will be able to explain how it is possible for at least one to still be around in due time" Zero told the fat little man, giving him a chilling stare.

"That will do Mr. Hawk" Darley said warningly. "Keep going."

"I went after the Oniyama and eventually destroyed it, however it took at least five direct hits from my missiles and my chain gun, it was only after I destroyed the cockpit with my laser blade that it went down. When it went down however, a series of missile launchers and gun turrets raised up from the ground and I retreated back to where Ken was, by this time he had already taken care of the defences around the shaft opening. I told him to go down the shaft as I was returning to the position and quickly followed him. Once inside we were met with more defences as we proceeded down a loading tunnel. When we came to the end of it, it was at this point we discovered that we weren't in an underground military complex, it was a lost Underground City, left over from the Great Destruction. It is my belief that the people there found an Oniyama and managed to get it working again – "

"Your sure it was an Underground City?" Darley asked him, trying to mask his shock.

"Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't dignify that with an answer, but yes, I'm pretty sure it was an Underground City, the tall buildings and streets kind of gave it away" he said acidly, and then quickly recomposed himself before continuing. "Here, we were met with a large battle force of MT's, battle tanks and a few small attack choppers. We engaged them in battle, taking apart as many as possible without recklessly wasting what precious ammo we had left. While I was taking care of the attack choppers, my computer detected another AC approaching, I couldn't see it, but by the time I landed, Ken was in the middle of fighting it. When I finally got a good look at it, I recognized it from an, incident, that happened four years ago and tried to tell Ken to retreat, but it he was unable to. As he made a small amount of damage above the cockpit area of the enemy AC, the pilot of the enemy AC attacked him from below, drove his laser blade up into the cockpit……"

He paused for a few seconds as he remembered Ken's last words, burning them into his mind so he would never forget them.

"………Ken died from injuries sustained from the attack. It was then that the enemy identified himself, he called himself Loki. I tried to engage him, but I only had a small amount of rounds left in my chain gun at the time and his skills with a laser blade were more then a match for me at the time, I was too angry to focus. In any case, I realized that if I was to get revenge for Ken and for what happened four years ago, I would have to retreat and rearm myself, that meant escaping the Underground City and getting back here. I escaped through the ventilation shafts. However while I was in the ventilation shafts I came to a grate in the shaft that was above a room, and I overheard the name of the group that is using the Underground City as its base of operations. They call themselves the Black Scythe Organization…….. Anyway, after that I managed to find a shaft that led to the surface and contacted the transport vessel for emergency pick up. While on my way I was chased by Loki and an immense amount of MT's, and I'm certain there were other AC's amongst them. I managed to clip Loki in the leg joint and he went down as I made my escape and here we are" he finished.

Silently Darley switched off the recorder and he and Shank started to talk quietly with each other, in another language so Zero couldn't understand them. The two seemed to converse with each other endlessly, but Zero simply swallowed his irritation while he watched them carefully. At times Darley seemed to get frustrated with Shank and would start snapping at him, Zero wondered idly what the guy was thinking.

"Can we hurry this up?" he said finally, causing both men to stop. "While its absolutely fascinating to watch you two talk in another language, my patience is wearing thin and I will not be held responsible for what will happen when I decided I've had enough of sitting here. So say whatever it is you have to say so I can get to telling Ken's wife that he's not coming home."

"You can go in a minute, we still have some questions we need to ask you" Darley told him, seemingly unaffected by Zero's short speech. "You said that after you destroyed this Oniyama, you told Ken to go down into the shaft, why?"

"Part of the mission requirements was to destroy any and all enemies on sight. I did not expect such a large force to be waiting for us. I thought we would have enough ammo and experience between us to be able to successfully complete the mission, however by the time that it became apparent that we didn't have enough ammo, it was too late" he replied calmly.

"Right. Now you said you recognized the AC piloted by this, Loki person from an event six years ago, mind telling me what event that was?" Darley asked.

Zero gave him a long look before answering. "Six years ago, a month before I became a pilot, I was in a city, far from here. The city was attacked by a number of heavily armed AC's. The clan that protected that city didn't have time to react, no one did. By the time the alarms went off, the city was already burning. There was so many bodies laying in the streets, mangled and mutilated beyond recognition, some were just smears left across the road. It was the first time I knew real terror. The survivors of that attack, and there was so few of us, we all lost a part of ourselves that day. I remember it all, so clearly, the AC that lead the attack, it was burned forever in my mind and I have had nightmares about it ever since. That AC belong to Loki, I'll never forget that machine, or the sound of his voice laughing over the speakers from his cockpit……….we never did identify the Clan that attacked us though, but I'm starting to think that it may have been the Black Scythe Organization. It was my sole reason for joining the clan in the first place, to get answers and find some solace in revenge, but until today I never found a single trace of the bastard."

He clenched his fists tightly as he thought about that day, a rush of memories coming back to him. He closed his eyes tightly and forced the memories away quickly, he didn't need to deal with that as well tonight, there would be plenty of time to remember another time.

"I can see that this is difficult for you, but I have one more question then you can go" Darley said.

"No" Zero said with a frown and stood up. "This 'debriefing' is over. I've told you what I know and I am done. I don't need counselling either, its not the first time I've dealt with this so I'll be going now/"

"You'll wait and answer this last question!" Darley snapped standing straight up and causing his chair to fall over.

"Tell me, have you ever watched a friend die right before your eyes and not being able to do anything but watch and listen? Would you still be here, listening to me if I was in your shoes and you in mine?" Zero asked him coldly, Darley didn't answer that and the two continued to stare the other down, until finally Darley backed off an looked away. "That's what I thought………"

After going to the locker rooms and changing back into his civilian clothes, Zero found himself walking down the dark streets, there wasn't many people out at this time of night and he found it almost eerie the emptiness of the streets. He stared idly at the scrap of paper in his hand with the address of Ken's place on it. He ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh of anxiety. He had never done this before, usually it would be a person that worked for Clan that went and alerted the relatives of a member killed on a mission, but Ken had asked him to deliver his last words to her, it was the least he could do for the one that had showed him the ropes. He didn't know what he was should say though, he just couldn't form the words.

Eventually he found the apartment block Ken lived in and before long he was standing in the hall way outside the apartment itself, pacing back and forth. Finally he got up the nerve he convinced himself that he needed and knocked on the door, instantly regretting it and felt like running, but he forced himself to stay. A minute later he heard foot steps and then the he heard the door being unlocked. Up till the door opened, it seemed like each second was an eternity.

The door opened up and there was Ken's wide, long flowing blond hair, perfect facial structure, beautiful blue eyes. She was basically the very image of a cliché super model, and could probably have been one too, but she was married to a Raven………

"Who are you?" she asked.

Zero took a deep breath. "My name is Zero Hawk ma'am, I'm – "

"Ah, Zero you're a Raven, my husband speaks about you often, you've made quiet a name for yourself, or so my husband says" she interrupted him. "I'm afraid he's not here at the moment though, he's out on a mission."

"I know, he was assisting me on the mission. That's why I'm here" Zero said, quietly. "I am truly to sorry to inform you ma'am, but your husband was killed during the mission."

The woman went still suddenly, almost as if someone had frozen her in place, her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. Zero said nothing, he just stood there and let her absorb the information. Still he expected her reaction to be something more then just a shocked look, but he knew people reacted to this kind of thing in different ways. Some would break down and cry hysterically, and some would simply shut themselves off. He was quiet familiar with the last one…

"Ken's dead?" she asked, Zero found her tone odd.

"Yes ma'am. I tried to get to him, but, I was too late. I'm sorry" he replied.

"I can't believe he's gone" she said, mostly to herself he realized, but her tone was really starting to get to him and he was beginning to sense a strange amount of relief and guilt in her voice.

"He wanted me to te – " he started, but some movement in the apartment behind Ken's wife, caught his attention. He focused more and saw that it was a mirror, and in the mirror he saw a man with a towel wrapped around his lower half. It clicked. He looked at Ken's wife with unmistakable disgust. "I see, I understand what's going on now. You're a real piece of work aren't you."

She looked back over her shoulder and saw what Zero had seen and looked back at him with anger flashing in her eyes.

"How dare you judge me. That bastard had more then enough chances to leave that stupid clan, but no, he loved those awful machines more then his own family that fo– " she was stopped short as Zero's open hand suddenly came around and caught her in the side of the face, the force of the slap almost throwing her against the wall. The man that had been hiding suddenly came running out and attacked Zero, throwing a punch at the young man, but the Raven side stepped and slammed his own fist into the man's nose, crushing it.

Zero grabbed the man's hair and pulled him to the side and slammed his face into the wall a couple of times, until the man was barely conscious before pulling him up to eye level.

"The husband of the wife you've been screwing was a very good friend of mine, and by all rights, I should beat you to death for him, but Ken wouldn't want me to have committed murder, over someone as pathetic as her" he said loud enough for the woman to hear, who was still reeling from the slap. She jumped as Zero slammed the man's face into the wall one last time and then let him fall to the ground, unconscious, then he turned and started walking away, but then stopped and in a cold voice he added, without turning around to face her. "Ken was always talking about you, and his kid, he loved you both more then you could obviously imagine. Even when he was dying, he asked me, to tell you, that he loved you. Why don't you think about that, when your using the money Ken worked so hard to earn so he could take care of you and his child, you selfish whore."

With that, he left.

He walked for what felt like the longest time, feeling sorry for Ken. He wondered silently what Ken's last words would have been, had he known about his wife's being unfaithful. He shook his head and continued on, trying his best not to think about it, but it just kept popping into his mind. He came to side walk bench and sat down in exhaustion before lighting up a cigarette, but he got little relief from it and sighed sadly as he flicked it away without much thought. Then, he slowly slid side ways until he was laying on the bench, and he never even noticed when he had fallen asleep.

A couple of hours later he was awoken by a prodding to the shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion, wondering what was happening and why things were so bright. Then there was the prodding again and he squinted his eyes slightly before he was able to make the two police offices standing over him, prodding him in the shoulder with a nightstick.

"Get up kid, you can't sleep here" said one of the cops gruffly.

He sat up slowly trying to figure out what was going on. The last thing he remembered was sitting down and having a brief smoke.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to" he said emotionlessly.

"Don't let it happen again or we'll have to give you a fine" said the second cop, a woman, she seemed to sound more tolerant then her partner.

He was opening his mouth to say something when his pager start to beep and as he pulled it off his belt the two cops walked off. He stared at the number on the pager and saw that it was a number inside the Clan HQ and growled slightly, couldn't they just let him be, he thought bitterly. He looked around until he saw the pay phone and quickly went over to it, pulling a credit chip out of his wallet and wondering how he didn't get robbed and killed while he was asleep.

The person on the other end picked up almost immediately.

"This is Hawk, what is it?" he said, suppressing a yawn.

"Mr. Hawk, this is Agent Darley, we need you to come in, we've got something here we think you might want to have a look at. I can't really say anymore over the phone, so hurry up and get your ass in here" the man on the other end said and without giving Zero time to protest, he hung up, leaving the young Raven growling angrily.

"Fucking asshole!!" he snarled, slamming the phone back down on to the receiver.

The walk back to the Clan HQ seemed to take forever, he couldn't believe he had walked so far during the night. The whole way back he kept wondering what it could be that he'd be interested in, because unless it was the exact location of Loki and information on who he really was and where he'd come from, he really wasn't interested in what they had to show him.

He rounded the corner and saw the HQ building and thank god he was finally there, and went to the front door. Almost as soon as he was in the door, the two guards were on him, he didn't even have time to protest before his arms were behind his back and the hand cuffs were put on.

"What the fuck is this!! Get these things off of me!!" Zero shouted as he started to struggle madly.

The two guards grabbed him under each arm and picked him up off the floor and carried him away, all the while the young Raven shouted and struggled until his throat felt raw and his limbs hurt, but he kept on trying nevertheless, defiant up till the end, which happened to be the debriefing/interrogation room he had been in when he got back from the mission. He was taken inside and forced to sit down, across from Agent's Shank and Darley, he flashed them a dangerous look.

"What the hell is the meaning of this!!" he demanded.

Silently, Agent Darley pressed play on a holo player and before Zero's eyes, he found himself staring at a battle between two AC's, the picture was a little fuzzy at first though and he couldn't make it out properly. The two AC's glided back and forth across a strange battle ground trading fire from their weapons and laser blades. Suddenly the picture became crystal clear and Zero's eyes widened in shock and realization. The two AC's looked exactly like his and Ken's. He suddenly felt extremely sick as it became obviously clear what the holo's purpose was. On the holo footage, he watched as the Warhawk duplicate delivered the final blow, an overhead strike that sliced straight through the cockpit.

He clenched his fists tightly.

"I believe the evidence speaks for itself" Darley said calmly.

"You actually believe this horse shit!?!" Zero demanded in disbelief as he shot up. "It's a fake, those AC's aren't Warhawk and Deathcard, and neither Ken or me battle like that!!"

"We received that holo vid an hour after you left last night, and we studied it very closely, I can assure you of that Mr. Hawk. If it wasn't for this video you would have gotten away with this. You put on a good show last night, so lets get down to the truth now shall we and you explain to us why you killed your fellow Clan member" Shank suggested.

"I did not kill Ken!!" Zero yelled.

"Fine, don't tell us" Shank said, then he stood up. "Zero Hawk, we are officially stripping you of your rank as a High Level ranking Raven. Your AC and all your possessions will be seized by the Clan and you will be imprisoned at the Luna Maximum Security Prison where you will carry out a life sentence for murder in the first degree, without the possibility of release. Guards, take him to the Transport vessel waiting for him in the hanger bay."

Zero starred opened mouth the whole time. He couldn't believe this was happening. He was sure he was still asleep on that bench dreaming, but he couldn't wake himself up from this nightmare. The guards picked him up again and carried him out, but this time he didn't struggle or protest, he was too damn shocked to do anything except let them carry him. Everyone was silent as they watched him being carried away, most of them gave him dirty looks, others confused looks, no doubt they couldn't believe he had done what he was obviously being accused of.

As he was being carried towards the lift he let his thoughts wonder over to the faked holo footage and he wondered how Loki had put something so elaborate together so fast and got it to the Clan without raising suspicion. Inside job he realized, Loki had to have had people on the inside here, and probably at other Clan's too, that's probably how he got his more skilled pilots, through scouting the Clan's. The question was, who in the Clan were spies, this Clan was one of the biggest Clan's and there was simply too many Raven's keep track off.

The two guards carried him on to the large elevator platform and set him down, none to concern about him running off on them and activated the decent. Zero watched the two guards silently from the corner of his eyes. He counted in his mind, ticking off numbers every few seconds. Then without warning he jumped into the air and slipped his arms down under his feet, he landed and before either guard could react, he lunged at the one closest to the controls and slipped his arms over his head and then pulled the chains of his hand cuffs tightly against the man's throat. The second guard pulled out a gun and took aim at Zero and opened fire, at the same time that the young Raven moved his captive in front of the bullets. Even as the first guard slipped to the ground Zero grabbed the gun that was in the guard's holster and put a bullet straight in the second one's head.

"There's no way in hell in I'm going to any prison for something I didn't do" he muttered coldly as he went about searching for the key's to his cuffs. As soon as he had his hands freed he collected the two guns. If they wanted a fight, he was going to give them one hell of a good one.

The elevator reached the bottom and shot forward, all the while Zero stood there with guns in hands readying himself for what he knew was coming next. The transport vessel that would be waiting for him would be a prison transport, with armed guards, with heavy assault rifles. As soon as they realized what was going on, all hell would brake loose, and it would be live or die, there would be no going to prison now, only death. It was a death sentence either way if he let himself get caught or hit. The prison warden would be paid a heavy sum of money and he'd be slipped into the prison population without question and all knowledge of him would disappear. He'd kill himself first before that happened. Though he knew if he lived to see another day, he'd be hunted for the rest of his life, he was now an Outcast.

The Elevator came to a stop and as soon as it did Zero was running as quickly as he could, he could see the prison transport. It only took the guards waiting form him a few seconds to realize what had happened and had their guns aimed and ready, he didn't stop though and brought up his own firearms, pee shooters compared to the one's the guards had. The roar of gun fire was deafening as he strafed to the side firing off the guns, taking down two of the guards quickly. They may have had high powered weaponry, but they were terrible shots and their bullets flew harmlessly by him. He thought one of them would have gotten lucky by now.

Zero jumped behind a stack of barrels as one bullet nearly nicked his ear, and quickly took a stock check of his ammo. He was down to half a clip in each gun. He looked around calmly to see what level he was on, trying to remember what the prisoner transport procedure was and how quickly he'd be able to get to Warhawk. Calmly he put one of the guns in the back of his pants and jumped out from behind the barrels, firing off two shots and taking down another guard. He hit the ground and rolled into a crouch, firing off another set of shots getting a forth guard in the head.

Good, he thought, only two more left to take care of. He charged to the two remaining guards and unloaded his gun into them, taking them down in a matter of seconds. He was mildly disappointed in their performance and wondered how they'd made it this far without being killed. He went inside the vessel and got into the pilots seat. He soon had the vessel up and flying towards his garage area, he knew he had to get to as quickly as possible before he had the whole Clan on his ass. He manoeuvred the vessel as close as he possibly could to the side of the section his AC was at and quickly got up and went to the cargo hold, jumped from the opened back end and landed next to his mech, he turned around just in time to see the vessel plunge to the ground far below, followed by a massive explosion and a ball of fire that rushed straight up.

He was climbing the ladder to his cockpit when an engineers came running out from no where and grabbed his leg.

"Your not going anywhere traitor!" the engineer snarled.

Zero frowned and kicked him in the face, sending him crashing to the ground and continued his climb to the cockpit. He was lucky he thought as he jumped into the cockpit and switched the systems on, all the weapon changes and additions had been made to it and he'd be flying with full ammo racks. His trump card was really his twin link chain gun though, the only one in existence, had been made especially for him as payment for a mission. It was a nice piece of weaponry and both chain guns could be fired at the same time or separately. Thankful that each could hold a 1000 rounds each.

He knew was going to need all the ammo he had, he thought.

He activated his boosters and was off almost immediately. It wouldn't be long before all the Raven's were after him. He suddenly felt like he was back in the Underground City again, only this time he didn't have to worry about one exception skilled pilot, he had to worry about hundreds of talented pilots coming to get him.

He was at the loading shaft when the first one caught up with him. A lightweight AC with dual laser blade arms and two small missile launchers. Zero had seen this guy fight once before and wasn't overly concerned, he wasn't no slouch with a laser blade himself and he had his interceptors to deal with the missiles. The battle was brief, Zero swinging his AC around at the right moment and parrying the double strike from the enemy and blasting a hole through the cockpit with his machine gun.

He was about to ascend the shaft when he heard other AC's coming for him. He turned his mech around and fired a shot into the control panel on the wall, bulkhead doors immediately begun to close and without wasting another second he turned on his overboost and with some careful handling he went straight up, firing two missiles a head of him into the bulkhead doors that were blocking his escape. The missiles impacted a second or two before he shot through the hole, the sides scraping at his arms briefly. He landed and looked around him, he knew he couldn't go into the desert, it was too open, no cover and it was a good bet there was a force of Black Scythe's out there waiting in case of an event such as this. He looked back to the city and reluctantly acknowledged that it was his only chance at the moment. Urban warfare was tricky and lots of places to take cover, he'd be able to take his time picking off any Raven's that came after him.

As he headed towards the city, he punched in an emergency com frequency on his control panel, followed by a password to clarify that it was him.

"Zero what's going on?" Jill asked as appeared on the holo screen. "I just got an alert that you killed a fellow clan member!"

"I'm being set up Jill!" he said as he entered the city. "That suicide mission from the anonymous employer, I need you to find out who set that up."

"That's going to be difficult to do, whoever requested that went through a lot of back channels to remain anonymous but I'll see what I can do" she promised him. "What else do you need?"

"The Clan is going to cease all my possessions soon, including all the money I have left. You know about the other account that I transfer all my pays into, it won't take them long to find that, what I need you to do, is transfer it into the another account, preferably one they won't think to look in, so that means not yours. Once its safely transferred, withdraw every last bit of it into cred chips and when I've finished off the last of my pursuers I'll collect them, I'll figure out how when I come to that bridge" he said.

"Right, got it" she nodded.

"And another thing Jill, when you've done that, get out of town. If what I've stumbled into is what I think it is, then this city is going to be straight in the path of bad shit" he told her seriously.

"Multiple AC's approaching" warned his computer.

"Shit, Jill, I've gotta go, I'll contact you when I've dealt with these assholes" he said as he slipped his arms through the harness straps and clipped them together, it was going to be a rough ride and he didn't want to knock himself out for not wearing a seat belt. "If I don't make it out of this in one piece though, you've been a great friend Jill."

"You'll make it out alive Zero" she assured him, then her face disappeared.

"I will" he muttered darkly.

His radar was coming to life as it showed numerous AC's coming towards him, almost all of them coming from the same direction, but some were circling around to come at him from the sides and the back. Let them come he thought, urban and small area combat was what he excelled at. He did a quick last second system check to make sure nothing had been tampered with, everything was in the clear though and he was ready for them. Idly, he wondered how long he would be able to run his mech at full combat operational performance, he knew he was going to end up using his laser blade a lot if he ran out of ammo first and that could put a strain on his energy management systems. He pushed the thoughts from his mind, they would only distract him if he kept thinking about it, and now was not the time to be distracted.

Live, he told himself.

His warning systems started to flash rapidly as it detected incoming missiles – mostly useless thanks to the lock on jam he had installed – and his interceptors went to work, destroying most of the missiles before they got close enough, but he still glided backwards cautiously before the stray missiles slammed into the ground where he had been standing. He saw the AC they had come from on screen, it was a tank type, heavily armed, but incredibly slow. He charged forward with his boosters at full, moving in and around missiles as they were launched at him, and was about to strike with his laser blade when a second biped AC suddenly leaped frog over the tank AC and slashed at him with its own laser blade. Zero barely had enough time to boost backwards, the blade missing him by inches. Quickly he brought his machine gun up and fired, the laser blasts biting into the right arm a couple of times before blowing it away.

The biped AC activated its back weapon – a laser cannon – and fired at him. He side stepped the first shot and flew into the air to escape the second one, dodging another couple of blasts before his targeting system got another lock on the AC and he raked a line of fire of across its upper sections, blowing away its laser cannon and head piece. Even as the biped went down though the tank AC started firing its bazooka at Zero, the shots were slow and easy to avoid though and Zero had no trouble getting close enough to finish it off with his laser blade, jumping on to its back and driving the close combat weapon into the back of the cockpit.

He was sideways as the ground next to the tank AC exploded in a large ball of the fire, the blast jarring his systems for a brief second as his mech rolled across the ground and into a building, destroying some of the front section. He looked up and saw a hover AC at the end of the street with a grenade launcher pointed at him. As fast as he could he got into a crouch and fired his boosters as the hover AC fired another blast, this one ripping apart the building he'd crashed into. Once in the air he switched to his missile launcher and fired as soon as the lock on appeared. From the air he saw the AC go up in a ball of flames.

He noticed his inceptors go off and turned in time to see a payload of missiles screaming towards him. He flew as fast as he could and the missiles missed him by a hairs width before slamming into the ground or buildings or whatever else was unfortunate enough to be in the path of them. Zero wondered how many innocent bystanders had already been killed, no doubt the city was going to be in a mass of chaos for the next couple of weeks at best.

He landed in a back street and scanned the area around him. He had enemies all around him and they were only getting closer and by the look of his radar there seemed to be no end to them either. He was starting to think this could very well be his last battle if he wasn't careful. He ran down one of the street and out into an intersection, where a hail storm of lasers and bullets erupted, he spun around to see a quadped and one reverse joint AC's with an assortment of weapons pointed at him.

"You guys are persistent" Zero sneered.

He glided backwards down the street dodging the storm of weapons fire, but no matter how hard he tried they clipped his arms and legs and dented his more heavily armored sections. He returned fire with short concentrated bursts from his machine gun and forced them to back up a little, putting him out of range of their weapons enough that the bullets and lasers were flying wild. His radar started flashing and he saw another AC behind him, quickly he strafed to the side and ducked down another street the hail storm tearing into the unfortunate AC and destroying it for him.

Just as he ducked into the other street however he saw the AC that had been hiding, it came at him before he could react and a second later his machine gun was destroyed, sliced in half as the enemies AC attacked him with its laser blade. He glided around it and put himself in the middle of the new street so he could get a better look at it. It was a biped and equipped only with a laser blade and pulse gun for its weapons, and attached to its shoulders was stealth equipment, which explained why he didn't see it on the radar. He cursed his carelessness.

"And now you die traitor" came a chilling voice from other pilot.

Zero activated his chain gun and fired, the burst of bullets that spewed out from both barrels punched right through the biped AC, which collapsed into a crumpled heap on the ground.

"Not by your hands I won't" Zero said, he then looked at the wreckage of his gun. "I guess I can still use it to club an enemy if I have to."

Realistically though, he knew he was going to have to find away to escape. He simply didn't have enough ammo to take on every Raven in the Clan, and he knew they weren't going to give up until he was dead. He knew what he was going to have to do though, he just didn't like it. Resignedly, he fried all his missiles into the sky and went about typing commands rapidly into his computer, before reaching into a compartment and pulling out a device that he strapped onto his forearm.

Minutes later he piloted the AC into the middle of the city, instantly the radar came to life as all the enemy AC's converged on the area, surrounding him completely and moving in for the kill. All types of weapons opened fire, shells and lasers all flying to one point. No one knew however, where all the large and powerful missiles came from though, the one's that mysterious came from the sky and ploughed into the ranks of the surrounding AC's. Then just as suddenly, Warhawk ran into the ranks and self destructed, destroying a sizeable amount of AC's and damaging even more.

Zero stood on the building he had climbed out of his AC on to and watched with a great deal of heartache as he blew up his own AC. Slowly he switched off the remote control, the mini radar and weapon systems displays fading away. He had a lot of money he could use to start over and rebuild a new AC, but it would be a long time before he had an AC as good as the one he had just blown up, he would get their eventually though, he knew this, he would need a new AC for when he went toe to toe with Loki.

"I won't die" the young pilot said with a cold sneer. "Not until I get my revenge…………"

Silently, he saluted his AC, and then disappeared into the night………

Next Time: With Zero dropping off the radar after faking his death, the Black Feather War escalates as one by one the Raven clans begin to fall. Next time its up to Kelira, an Earth Forces operative to stop what could possibly mean the destruction of the entire Earth Forces and spell the start of hell on earth for citizens of the blue planet!!

Stay Tune For: Chapter 2: Kellira Alexas


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